Steve Rogers AU - Lonely
by Disgarded
Summary: This is a depressing little snippet - the inner thoughts of a soldier who doesn't want to live in the future, and isn't sure how to go on. (Written before Avengers came out and obviously made AU by literally everything.)


Four months. Four months he'd been awake.

He felt like he was two people: Captain America, the confident, decisive soldier who had already led his new team on two successful missions; and Steve Rogers, who still sometimes wondered if this whole thing was just a dream... or a nightmare.

When he put on the suit, there was no enemy he wouldn't face, no evil he wouldn't fight, no obstacle that couldn't be overcome. Even in the short time he'd worked and trained with his fellow Avengers, he felt like he knew them well enough to trust them in battle. He knew the limitations of Ironman's suit, how fast he could fly, and how many weapons he had equipped. He knew just how far away Hawkeye could aim and still be perfectly accurate. He knew how deadly the Black Widow was, even outnumbered and surrounded. He knew the kind of damage the Hulk could do, and the kind of power Thor wielded.

Captain America had the ability to focus on what needed to be done, and to evaluate a combat situation so that each team member was utilized to the fullest.

And after the battle was done, and he took off his suit...

He went back to the room Shield had prepared for him. The one in the basement that had been made to look like it was still 1940-something. The one with no windows to the outside so he wouldn't wake up in the middle of the night thinking there was a fight going on when it was really just the sound of the immense New York traffic.

Without his suit he was just Steve Rogers, the guy who should've been dead like everyone else he knew.

Part of the problem, he suspected, was that he'd never really learned how to live without war. Before he'd become a super soldier, he'd spent his life longing to fight. Almost everything he'd done had been part of some plan to get him accepted into the Army so that he could go defend his country. All he could ever remember wanting to be was a soldier.

Even after the serum had changed him, he still never really knew what to do with himself. He did as he was told, always hoping they'd let him finally fight, and then when they had, his whole world had been consumed by war. Fighting, or trying to get to the fight had been all he'd ever done.

Now he suddenly found himself in a world where everything was different. The world was no longer at war - at least not in the way it used to be. His country no longer needed him to inspire them to buy war bonds. He no longer had a group of soldiers counting on him to lead them into battle against HYDRA.

He had a team now. A team of highly skilled fighters who could come together at a moment's notice and get the job done. Then, they'd go back to... Steve actually wasn't sure what they went back to. He didn't know because he'd taken one look at Time's Square and he'd decided that if it were all the same to Director Fury, he'd rather not join the future. Sure, he'd fight when they needed him to fight - that was what he was good at. That was what he was _made for_. But once the fighting was over, he'd retreat to this... shelter they'd made him.

He didn't really have any complaints. Everything about his living space looked like it should. Even the exercise area off to one side looked like an old boxing studio, complete with posters of Joe Louis and Sugar Ray Robinson.

He'd never actually heard of Sugar Ray, much to his decorator's chagrin. Apparently he'd risen in the boxing ranks while Steve had been busy fighting the war, and he'd won the world title just after Steve had gone into the ice. They'd made an effort, anyway.

They'd made an effort to get him some music he recognized, too. They'd been a bit more careful about selecting it, after having flubbed it with the boxers. They'd succeeded, too, only the record player didn't exactly look like a record player. It was a radio, but they'd told him the records were hidden inside where he couldn't see, and all he had to do was push the buttons to switch to a new record.

Sometimes they treated him like he was an idiot. He might be almost 70 years behind, but he knew there weren't any records hidden in the radio. The music was right, but the sound was all wrong. In fact, the music that came from his little stereo at the push of a button was more clear and crisp than any he'd heard from any record player.

In the lulls between fighting evil, they mostly left him alone. It was how he wanted it, he'd told them early on. "I'll fight for you," he'd said, "but that's all. I won't join this world; I don't belong here."

He used to go out drinking with the Howling Commandos. Even after he'd realized that he'd never actually get drunk, he'd gone with them anyway, just sitting with them, unwinding, laughing at their stories, and singing along with whatever bar tune started up.

He still couldn't believe they were all dead.

He suspected his current team had some sort of similar post-fight ritual, but he hadn't asked. After battles he'd go change and disappear into his quarters as fast as he could. It wasn't that he didn't like them... they all seemed like very nice people, in fact. But he just couldn't...

He couldn't pretend like he belonged here. He couldn't go out and have a good time while all of his friends and fellow soldiers had just been killed - at least in his perspective. Sure, they may have been dead for years, some of them. Others had lived well into their old age and had died great grandfathers. But to Steve, they day he'd woken up was the day they'd all been killed. Everyone.

Even Bucky's death had hit him all over again, even though he'd died earlier. Steve had always figured he'd have a chance to grieve his best friend properly once the war was over. Instead, he'd put Schmitz's plane down in what was supposed to be his last heroic act. He hadn't been a pilot, but he'd known enough about airplanes and impact speed to know that even if he hit the water, he wasn't going to survive. In those last few seconds he'd made peace with that. He'd kept talking to Peggy, wanting his last moments to be spent with her, if not in person, than at least in spirit, but he'd known he wasn't going to keep his date. They'd both known that.

Then suddenly he'd been awake, and almost 70 years had passed. Peggy was gone, the Howling Commandos were all gone, Colonel Philips was gone, the army he'd known was gone. Everything and everyone he'd known had died that day that he woke up.

Sometimes he wished he'd died too. It seemed grossly unfair to him that he'd lived. Disrespectful, almost. They'd been no less heroic, no less brave, but somehow he's the one who'd ended up a national icon. He's the one who was still alive, still young, still strong decades later.

In his darkest moments, and there were a lot of them lately, Steve wondered if he would ever die. Would the serum keep him alive forever? He wished he'd had more time with the doctor to ask all of these questions.

He didn't want to live forever.


End file.
